Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Bucks defense officially above average

I'm doing my first "Point Value over Average" statistical analysis for my inaugural NBA Power Rankings list, and I can now officially confirm that the Milwaukee Bucks are an above average defensive team. When was the last time we could say that?

The cumulative, home/road-adjusted Offensive Efficiency average (points per 100 possessions) for Milwaukee's opponents to date is 101.4 pts. Yet the Bucks have held them to only 101.3 pts. Thus, for the first time in a long time, the Bucks can rate as a "good" defensive team.

Now, if we could just get the offense squared away. The offense currently rates a -3.4, for an overall PVOA score of -3.3. I'm guessing that will combine to land the Bucks around 21st in my Power Rankings, but that's just speculation since I've only done a couple calculations.

By the way, the Lakers have a commanding overall PVOA score of +13.9. But guess who's emerging as a possible challenger out of the East? The Atlanta Hawks. They have a PVOA of +10.3, more than double that of the presumed Eastern power, the Celtics, who are off to a ho-hum start at +5.9.